Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with
limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off
compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site
without styles and JavaScript.

2D Materials

In this Focus Issue, we explore the field of 2D materials with articles on their synthesis, fundamental properties, and the devices they enable.

Graphene and other 2D materials are intensely studied because they are promising for applications as diverse as electronics, valleytronics, catalysis and biosensing. The wealth of available materials is impressive and includes single-element layers such as graphene and phosphorene, and layered materials with mixed elemental compositions such as transition metal dichalcogenides, MXenes, and van der Waals heterostructures. The range of properties that 2D materials can exhibit includes high carrier mobilities, superconductivity, mechanical flexibility, good thermal conductivity, as well as high optical and UV adsorption.

In this collection of Comments, Research Highlights and Reviews, we hope to reveal the recent synthetic developments, the state-of-the-art devices as well as the challenges facing the commercialization of 2D materials, their adoption in biomedicine and other applications.

The commercialization of graphene-based products is challenging, because many engineering and economical aspects have to be taken into consideration. A stronger collaboration between academia and industry would be beneficial for accelerating the process.

Field-effect transistors (FETs) with semiconducting channels made from 2D materials are known to have fewer problems with short-channel effects than devices comprising 3D semiconductors. In this Review, a mathematical framework to evaluate the performance of FETs is outlined with a focus on the properties of 2D materials, such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, phosphorene and silicene.

Phosphorene is a 2D material exhibiting remarkable mechanical, electronic and optical properties. In this Review, we survey fabrication techniques and discuss theoretical and experimental findings, exploring phosphorene from its fundamental properties to its implementation in devices.